An Observation Of Creative Childs Play Young People Essay

Method of observation

The method of observation that I will be using is time sampling, the reason is that it allows me to point out many important information in an exact time and it is useful because it gives a wider picture of the child.

Type of observation

The type of observation is participant. I actually participated in the activities that the child A was participating and I observed her at the same time too.

Record of observation

9.00 am: Child (A) is sitting on the floor with her legs crossed and both of her arms crossed. The teacher told them that they can now go to take part in the free play session. Child A quickly gets up stands and walks towards the creative table, where there was a paint activity set up. Next child A picks up a blue apron with her right hand. She put her right arm into the apron first then she put her left arm into the apron. She asks me to fasten her apron from the back.

9.15 am: child A is still at the painting area, she picks up a small paint brush with her right hand. A then applies some blue pain on to a piece of A3 paper, after that she moves the paint brush towards the paper, A then dabbed the paint brush onto the paper two times.

9.30 am: within painting area, one of A’s friend comes closer to A and asks her to play with her. Child A gets excited and they start to play. After a while A and her friend ask me what they can draw as I sit down on a chair at the end of the table. I suggest them that they can draw each other. Therefore, child (A) picks a red paint and tries to draw her friend.

9.45 am: child A is at the drawing area by her self. She is drawing a picture of her dog with a brown felt tip pen. She is making a rough circle with big ears and a long neck.

10.00 am: child A is at the sand area with her two friends. She’s trying to make a cake for her peers. While she’s making a cake, I asked her about the recipe. “sugar, chocolate and ....” she said. Therefore, I explained her that we need “sugar, egg, flour and water” to start with. She pretends that she added the thing that she needs and then asked me if I could put it in the oven. So I did what she asked me.

10.15 am: child A is in the playground area with friends on the climbing frame. One girl is in front of her. She is waiting for her turn to down the slide.

10.30 am: child A is playing with another child. She is running, laughing and screaming.

10.45 am: child A is helping to tidy up the playground. She’s putting all the blocks in the box.

11.00 am: child A is in the writing area, she is drawing a big butterfly; she is using different colour pencils and drawing at the centre of the paper.

11.15 am: child A is sitting on the floor (group-time) she is listening to music and taking part in dance activity. She is copying the action that the teacher does.

11.30 am: time to go home, child A is standing on both feet, wearing her jacket, walks towards her mum and goes home.

I have looked at Piaget’s theory to support my observation and by doing that I came to know that “children are active learners”. Available at: <http://www.sk.com.br/sk-piage.html>. I believe this statement that children learn and explore when they are active.

Jean Piaget also believed that “children are actively involved in structuring their own cognitive development through exploration of their environment. Children need real objects and concrete experiences to discover things for themselves”.

According to (D3webdesignes.com,2007-2010)Children ages 3 years old are expected to “relate present activities and past experiences and to draw a person with a head and also to sort objects into simple categories”.

By carrying out the observation on child A, I noticed that she co operates well with other children of her age. According to Penny Tassoni, (2002) “children aged 3-4 start to co-operate with each other and enjoy playing together. Most of their play is pretend play.” Therefore, this shows that she is at the right stage of her development. Her social and emotional are also at the right stage for her age.

By looking at the observation, I noticed that her physical development is at the right stage too, as she can run, walk and use the slide without any help. Her intellectual skills are that she can draw pictures, write her name, and use different colours.

Play is also plays an imperative role in children’s learning. Play helps them in developing five areas, creative, physical, imaginative, manipulative and social. Wasserman (1992) explains five advantages of play. Firstly children will be able to produce something new, and they will be able to take risks. Therefore, play provides the sensible learning and improvement to the child. In play’s learning environment, children will develop socially, emotionally, intellectually and physically.

Recommendation

I think that this observation needs to be carried out frequently in nursery; because then teachers and parents can realize how these kinds of activities promote children’s learning. Therefore, practitioners would be able to create a range of other activities to advance the children’s knowledge and understanding. For example: the setting must provide children more range of drawing pencils and pens, and different texture of paper, in this case it would be (child A). This will encourage her to express her feelings as well as helping her in gaining more confidence in drawing and painting.

Secondly I recommend that setting needs to provide children extra free time to play in order to explore the world around them and also they must ensure that equipments and all the materials are prepared for the children to come and play when ever they wish.

Thirdly I recommend that practitioners and parents take their children out for walks and talk to them about nature, by this, the child would look around, and therefore they may ask questions about the world around them.

What I learnt by doing this observation?

By doing this observation I realized that child A is more likely to involve in creative activities with her peers. McMillan believed that having accessed to mainly most materials in play activities is important in children’s play as it helps them to develop as a whole person. Isaac also believes that play must encourage children to discover their inner feelings.

By carrying out this observation I also learnt how to get involved in activities with children and how to encourage them to explore the colours. Child A expanded her creativity in this exercise as she practiced painting methods and mixing other products to make a cake. She also learned to trust opinions of the teacher assistant that she works with, she learned to appreciate adult’s experience and knowledge.

By carrying out this observation I’ve found out that child A is at the right developmental stage, however, each child develops at their own rate. Moreover, this observation improved my understanding on how children play with the littlest amount of items and achieve so much information and knowledge from it. I also realized that she has very good hand to eye co-ordination which allows her to control her hand movements.